Warren Murphy: Union Bust

"I am sorry to hear that, little father."

"Do not be. I have found a student. I have found the new Master of Sinanju to take my place on the day I return home to the womb waters separating China from Korea upon which Sinanju sits like a blessed pearl."

"That is a great honour, little father."

"You will be worthy if you do not allow your arrogance and laziness and impure habits to destroy the magnificence of the progress I have initiated and nurtured."

"Your success but my failure, little father," said Remo smiling. "Don't I get a chance to do anything right?"

"When you will have a pupil you will do everything right," said Chiun with ever so slight a smile, giving himself full approval for a witticism he was sure deserved it.

"This Nuihc. How do I rate next to him?"

Chiun lifted his fingers and closed them to a hair's breadth.

"You are that far away," he said.

"Good," said Remo. "Then I'm in the ball game."

Chiun shook his head. "A close second is not a desirable place to finish in a battle to the death."

"It doesn't have to be a second. I could work something."

"My son, in five years, you will be this much," said Chiun, holding his hands a half-foot apart, "better than he. You must be an aberration of your white race. But this is truth. In five years Nuihc, the ingrate and deserter, will be second place. In five years, I unleash you against the son of my brother and we will bring his kimono back to Sinanju in triumph. In five years there will be no parallel to you. In five years you will surpass even my greatest ancestors. Thus it is written. Thus it is becoming."

Chiun's voice echoed with pride. Lest his pupil indulge in the vanities to which he was so addicted, Chiun added another thought.

"Thus have I made greatness from nothing."

"Little father," said Remo. 'I don't have five years. My country does not have five years. It has until this afternoon."

"It is a big country. So today one group robs it instead of another. It will be here tomorrow, rich and fat. What is your country to you? Your country executed you. Your country forced you into a life you did not seek. Your country unjustly accused you of a crime."

"America is my Sinanju, little father."

Chiun bowed gravely. "This I understand. But if my village had wronged me as you have been wronged, I would not be its master."

"A mother cannot wrong a son…"

"That is untrue, Remo."

"I did not finish. A mother cannot wrong a son to such a degree that he will not save her in time of danger. If you are the father I never had, then this nation is the mother I never had."

"Then in five years give your mother a present of Nuihc's kimono."

"She must have it now. Come with me. The two of us can surely overcome this Nuihc."

"Ah, unfortunately at this stage we would only endanger ourselves. We would have to cross lines of attack only for a fraction of a moment, and we would both be dead. I have trained you as no other man has been trained. Greatness lies on the morrow. You are not some tin soldier to go marching off to his death because bugles call. You are what you are, and what you are does not march foolishly to his death. No training, no skill, no energy or force can overcome the mind of a fool. Do not be a fool. This I command."

"I cannot obey that command, little father." Chiun spun to face his television set, and turning it on, he remained silent.

Remo changed to a loose-fitting suit. The wound had caked and was becoming itchy. He ignored it. At the door to the suite, Remo said good-bye to the Master of Sinanhu.

"Thank you, little father, for what you have given me."

Without turning to set his eyes upon Remo, Chiun spoke.

"You have a chance. He may not conceive that a white man can do what you do."

"Then I do have a chance. Why are you so glum?"

"Chances are for cards and dice. Not for us. My teaching is like the rose fragrance in a north wind."

"Will you wish me luck?"

"You have learned naught," said Chiun, and was silent again.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The traffic jam into Nuihc Street stretched for miles, Remo got out of the taxi and trotted past the cars with angry frustrated drivers, men who had been told in the wee hours of the morning that the final day of the convention was to be in a new building, the new headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.

When a few had complained that they already had a headquarters in Washington, they were told that Washington would be only the drivers' headquarters. Confusing. There were lots of confusing things about their new president. This was one more.

Remo pushed his way through a long line of men at the entrance, weaving and dodging complaints of 'Hey, don't you know how to get in line?"

A few recognized him as the new recording secretary. The guard at the gate was wearing a bandage. Oh, that was the man who had held his fish last night, at the beginning of the long night in which every effort to avoid the extreme plan had failed—and ultimately the extreme plan itself had failed.

The guard did not recognize him in daylight. He looked at Remo's delegate card.

"Oh yeah," said the guard. "Jethro wants to see you. He's right inside."

Remo saw Jethro in the large entrance hallway. Drapes hid what was obviously a sign. Perhaps those drapes would unveil the driver's emblem, or worse, the emblem of the new superunion.

Jethro greeted people as they arrived with the usual 'howarya," and 'goodtoseeya." Remo walked up to within a spit. He saw Jethro notice him, saw the faint flicker of fear in the blue eyes, then the phony smile.

"Howarya fella, good to see ya," said the president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.

"Glad to be here, Gene. A great day. A great day," said the recording secretary. They embraced warmly, the drivers lined up watching union solidarity at work.

"Let's go downstairs. I want to talk to you. Union business."

"Good idea," said Remo.

Friendly, the two union leaders made their way to the elevator. Friendly, they got into the elevator. Friendly, they spoke until the doors closed and Jethro had pressed the combination button.

"You lying sonuvabitch," said Jethro. "You said you had pined us."

"You're hurt that I lied," laughed Remo. "When were you born?"

"Who do you work for?" said Jethro.

"I don't work for Nuihc," said Remo. "Where is he?"

"None of your business," said Jethro.

"Am I going to meet him?"

"Sure," said Jethro, a cold smile crossing his face.

Remo hummed. He hummed as they entered the large basement. He hummed as he saw the auto-length sign for the union that would destroy a nation and the union movement with it. He hummed as Jethro worked the combination lock on a door to a room that seemed the center of a whole waterpipe network.

He hummed when the door shut behind him.

Jethro went behind a barren iron desk. Remo spotted the nozzles on the ceiling, shower nozzles.

Jethro reached under the desk.

"I have a switch here that will unleash something that will kill you painfully. Now I can make it hard on you, or I can kill you with my hands."

Remo shouldn't have done it. It was highly unprofessional. But the laugh was out before he thought of controlling it.

"Sorry," said Remo. "I just thought of a joke."

"All right. Have it your way," said Jethro. "I can stop this process when it becomes very painful and then you'll beg me to let you talk."

"Right," said Remo fighting back an instant guffaw. "Beg. Right. Beg you." But it was no use. He laughed, and then let the laughter roar out full and pleasing.

He stopped laughing when a fine spray began forming from the nozzles. Jethro donned a mask. Obviously the substance was to be breathed in. Let your blood stream carry the poison, and perhaps, if it followed an old, simple mechanism of Sinanju discarded in the twelfth century, perhaps Remo would begin to dissolve.